Time On My Hands 4
by Laura W
Summary: Six months after Voyager's return, someone watches over Chakotay. J/C. Updated 6/13 to fix something that was a little unclear in the first draft.


**NOTE:** The only _Voyager_ novel I have read is "Mosaic," and I don't even think I finished that one. If the character featured here bears no likeness to the character in the current series of novels, that's because I haven't read them. This is my own take on what she might be like.

**Time On My Hands 4**

He has never had so much time on his hands.

My brother has come here to rest. I do not say that he has come _home_ to rest. This colony world will never be home to him, and our people, though close to his heart, will never be the family he longs to go back to.

This is the second time he has come here since _Voyager_ returned. The first time, he brought with him a very young woman he claimed to love. But it was not love I saw between them. I saw great affection and deep respect, but not love. She was a very beautiful and intelligent woman, and very desirable to my brother.

My children feared Seven.

I feared her on my brother's behalf. I sensed that she was using him to try to find a part of herself the Borg took from her. And I sensed that he was using her to keep something of his _Voyager_ family for himself, having lost so many already. I knew they would hurt each other.

My brother and I did not speak of this. He would not have appreciated my intrusion. He would have told me I sound like our Father. We would have argued. I was too grateful to have him alive and well and in my house at last that I had no wish to spoil our time together with harsh words.

This time, he has come alone.

I could see immediately that Seven's abrupt departure had left him vulnerable to the emotions he was using her to avoid. This time when he arrived, his eyes, usually so full of warmth and humor, were haunted. Six months after his return to the Alpha Quadrant, my brother has finally been forced to face himself.

The Starfleet counselors met with us upon _Voyager's _return, naming all the emotions our loved ones would feel. But my people know very well the burdens a wounded warrior carries. His hurts are not visible. Aside from signs of age – tired lines around his eyes, graying hair at his temples – he looks like the brother I remember.

His wounds are deep inside, visible only in those pained, haunted eyes.

We have spoken only a little about his experiences in the Delta Quadrant. He speaks about the people, and I know from his words that he misses them. But still he stays away from them. He has done something that keeps him from going back to them, something that perhaps he fears they cannot forgive. I think it is more likely that he cannot forgive himself.

He has been here two weeks. Many of our people walk lightly around him, watchful for signs that the angry man they knew from the Maquis will suddenly return. I have no fear of this happening. The Delta Quadrant changed him, but I think that in time he will find a balance between the hard, distant man he became there and the gentle man he was before the Maquis. He will find the good in himself again and move forward.

I sense this, I _know_ this, because I have watched him with my son.

Paka, my Little Mouse, is a jubilant and gentle boy. He is sensitive to the moods of those around him. When my brother was here with Seven, I sensed that Paka wanted to be with his Uncle, but he was wary of her. It embarrassed Seven. It hurt my brother.

This time when he arrived, Paka toddled to him, slipped his arms around my brother's knees and leaned his head against my brother's legs. I think my Little Mouse sensed my brother's hurt and responded in the only way he knew how. Just by being with him.

They have been together ever since, every day. It is good for my brother to have someone accept him so unconditionally, someone who did not know him before the Maquis and _Voyager_. Paka never asks him how he is feeling, or if there is anything he can do to help. Paka only loves him. I think that this is what my brother needs more than anything. Someone who loves the man he is now, not the memory of the man he was before.

This is why I allow Paka to spend so much time with him, even though I fear it will break my son's heart when Chakotay leaves. But Paka is young. He will heal in time. My brother needs to heal now. He needs to heal so that when he goes to her, he will go with a clear mind and an open heart.

He keeps her image beside his bed. I know it very well now. I have watched my brother's eyes slip to it often as we talk in his room. I have stared at it myself when I have come in the night to watch him sleep. She watches over him, too, this red-headed woman with clear blue eyes and an ironic, crooked smile. I think he must turn her image to him when he lays himself down each night, so that hers is the last face he sees before he sleeps.

I do not know what to think of this woman.

I am grateful she brought him back to us. But she brought him back so broken he could not rest, and so bound he could not settle.

She is not the woman I would choose for my brother, if I could choose.

But his choice is already made.

Words are important. Words have power to hurt or heal, to enrage or soothe. I have listened to the words my brother has used to describe Kathryn Janeway. Wise. Brave. Strong. Compassionate. Kind. Intelligent. Caring. All good words.

But I have listened carefully to his silences, too, and I hear clearly the meaning of the words he does not say.

He does not say that she is beautiful. But she is. He does not say that she hurt him. But she did. He does not say that he loves her. But he does.

Her image is the only thing he unpacked when he arrived here two weeks ago. He has not touched the cargo container he brought with him. I suspect he has not touched it since he packed it on _Voyager_ six months ago.

But this day... This day, something has changed.

It is late, past Paka's bedtime. I have come to my brother's room looking for them both. Paka sometimes sleeps in Chakotay's bed, so it would not surprise me to find him here.

What I find instead makes me want to both laugh and cry, because it is so strange and so wonderful.

My brother is seated on the floor, leaning against his bed. His head has fallen back on the mattress and he is snoring. His right hand is curled loosely on the _akoonah_. He has fallen asleep while on a vision quest. My Little Mouse is sprawled on his lap, his cheek resting on my brother's thigh, his round backside in the air. His thumb has slipped from his mouth and he is drooling on my brother's leg.

The contents of my brother's now-empty cargo container are strewn all over the floor around them in a chaos of rocks, shells, clothes, books, PADDs, and dozens of bizarre artifacts I cannot even begin to identify.

Watching over everything – the mess, the man, the boy – is the image of Kathryn Janeway, that sardonic smile on her freckled face.

I stare wide-eyed at the objects around them. After seven years of traveling, these are the items my brother has chosen to keep. He does not covet material goods, so I know each of these things, these talismans, must have great power and great meaning to him. Each one must have a story, a story he must tell in order to heal properly.

I am wondering how to ask him for these stories when I realize he is awake now, and watching me with a sheepish grin that I have not seen in years. I raise my eyebrows and look pointedly at the mess on the floor. He shrugs. "Paka helped me unpack," he whispers.

"I see that." He shifts uncomfortably on the floor. "Do you want me to take him?"

"Could you? My feet are asleep."

I step over the mess, careful not to tread on anything, and pick my Little Mouse up from Chakotay's lap. Paka fusses for a moment when I lay him on my brother's bed. Chakotay grabs a shirt from the floor and drapes it over Paka. He sits on the edge of the bed and rubs my son's back until the boy settles again and goes back to sleep.

I sit next to my brother, very close.

We are both quiet for a moment, making sure Paka is asleep before we speak again. When I turn to him to ask about the objects on the floor, I find Chakotay staring at the image of Kathryn Janeway. I catch my breath at the regret in his eyes, and the longing.

I slip my hand into his. "You will go to her?"

His hand tightens over mine. It is the first time we have spoken openly of his connection to her. "Yes," he says softly.

"Soon?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "I'm not ready," he says.

I rest my head on his shoulder. "Soon," I say.

After a moment, I feel him nod. "Soon," he says.

I sit with him for many minutes, grateful for his nearness now, already regretting the distance to come. I knew I would not be able to keep him here, not when he so clearly belongs somewhere else.

He turns and kisses the top of my head. "Sorry about the mess," he says. "I'll get it in the morning."

"It's all right," I say. "What are all these things?" I lean over and pick up a flimsy pair of old-fashioned glasses. They are the oddest glasses I have ever seen, made of paper with a red lens and a green lens. "What are these?"

He laughs softly. "That's a long story."

I look up at his beloved face, more peaceful now than it was before. "Tell me."

He smiles. "How about I put the Little Warrior here to bed, and you pick a few things out of the mess. We'll put on some tea and I'll tell you their stories."

We sit up for many hours. He tells me stories that make me roar with laughter, and a few that make us both weep salty tears. When dawn breaks we are both exhausted. It is more emotion than I have seen him express since before the Cardassians came.

He is healing.

Soon he will go.

He has so much time on his hands now.

I am grateful that he has chosen to spend this time with me.

-END-


End file.
